How anxious? Well, Pasqualoni used the word over two dozen times during his turn at the podium Tuesday morning to talk up the 2013 edition of the Huskies during football media day for the new American Athletic Conference at the Hotel Viking. And then he tossed it out several more times during his round-table sit-down with the state media.

He's anxious to put two straight losing seasons behind him. Anxious to see what his two dozen-plus incoming freshmen can do once they get on the field. Anxious to see how his mostly veteran offense will fare under new offensive coordinator T.J. Weist. And anxious to see how the new pieces will fit on defense.

"I'm very, very anxious to get the team in on Thursday, very, very anxious to get started on Friday," Pasqualoni said. "Friday's the first day we can actually get on the field and practice. Very anxious to see what the team looks like. The first thing as a coach that you want to get done is to see the team and see if they pass the `look' test, from a conditioning standpoint, from a strength standpoint."

And Pasqualoni's not the only one who's bouncing up and down, waiting for the start of practice to begin.

"I'm very anxious. I can't wait to put all that in the past and move on to this season," cornerback Byron Jones said. "I really think that we're going to have a better season. I think we have a much better attitude and maturity on our team."

And while Jones feels the Huskies are due for better times this season, the respective media members that voted for the preseason poll apparently do not. UConn was picked to finish seventh among the 10 teams in the new AAC with lame-duck Louisville -- the Cardinals are headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2014 -- as the team to beat. Louisville received 28 of 30 first-place votes with Cincinnati getting the remaining two first place votes. The Bearcats were tabbed to finish second.

Rutgers, headed to the Big 10 next season, was picked for third, followed by Central Florida, South Florida and Houston. After UConn, SMU, Temple and Memphis rounded out the poll.

"We'll use it (picked seventh) as motivation. But to tell you the truth, I don't put one ounce of ... not 10 seconds of thought into this," Pasqualoni said. "It doesn't really matter to me where we start, it only matters where we finish. To me it's a non-factor."

"I don't think games are won in preseason rankings," he said. "It's all about what you do on the field and how you finish. We don't focus on any of that."

What the focus will be on this season is how the offense recovers from a season where they rushed for just 87.9 yards a game, allowed 33 sacks, just 230.4 yards passing and averaged just 17.7 points. Hence, the hiring of Weist and a lot of new offensive wrinkles.

"We want to get into a rhythm and make sure we keep the defense on their heels," Whitmer said. "I like the up-tempo, the no-huddle. We can do pretty much anything. If we can do different things, it'll make us more diversified. No one can hone in on one thing and I think that's what good about what we're doing."

There will be some new faces on defense, especially at linebacker with Jefferson Ashiru and Ryan Dinohue replacing Sio Moore and Jory Johnson, flanking Yawin Smallwood, who led the team with 120 tackles as a sophomore last season and has been named to the preseason watch lists for the Nagurski, Butkus and Bednarik awards.

To fill one void, Pasqualoni has moved Jones from safety to cornerback and the junior is excited about the switch.

"We're (the defense) still going to be the rock, that's a UConn tradition," Jones said. "I think the best thing about us is we have young guys playing that have experience and we can pass our knowledge on to the younger guys and bring them up and make us a great defense. That's how it was when Blidi and Gratz and Sio and Trevardo were here. That's how it's going to be again."

The Huskies -- whose home schedule includes Towson, Maryland, Michigan, South Florida, Louisville, Rutgers and Memphis -- need to show themselves, and the rest of the college football world, that these last two seasons were nothing more than flukes.

"It's time to move on. Dwelling on last year isn't going to get us anywhere this year," Greene said. "Everyone's been working hard, getting prepared physically for camp. That's what it's all about. We're excited. We're hungry and ready to go."